JEFF: Yeah. So, you know, it’s an old addition and when they built it, they covered the old gable up. And so when I went up there to insulate this spring, I had to kind of cut a hole through the old gable end to get into the addition. And so my question is: do I need to – should I keep cutting away at that or do I – how do I properly vent that? I don’t want to cut the whole thing out, because I suppose there’s some support there.

TOM: OK. So they – basically, when you added the addition, they added it onto the gable end of the old roof. So when you go up in the attic, you kind of see the old roof structure and the old gable end where the vent used to be, correct?

JEFF: Right. In fact – and I couldn’t get through there. I mean there was – the vent was too small for me to get through to get into the addition to insulate.

TOM: Oh, so there wasn’t even any access in there to insulate. They didn’t insulate when they built the addition?

JEFF: They did. They did insulate but how they actually got it in there, I don’t know. I couldn’t get to it, I know that.

TOM: The answer to your question is that you want to basically treat each space separately in terms of ventilation. And the best way to ventilate an attic is – actually no longer do we consider gable vents to be the best type of ventilation. The best type of ventilation – a continuous ridge vent that goes down the peak of the roof, matched with soffit vents at the overhang. So this way, we take air in down low, we run it up under the roof sheathing and exit it at the ridge. And that cycle will repeat 24-7, 365.

JEFF: Yeah. The only problem is there’s no soffits in this house.

TOM: Alright. So if you did want to ventilate an attic, you could use a type of vent called a drip-edge vent, which would require a little bit of carpentry. You’d have to extend or actually reshingle the bottom layer of shingles at the edge. But the drip-edge vent actually extends that roof line by about 2 inches and creates a continuous soffit.

And if you go to AirVent.com – that’s the website for the CertainTeed air-vent companies – I know they’ve got a good diagram of one right there. So that’s the way to improve that.

Now, if you can’t do that or you don’t want to do that, for all the obvious reasons, and maybe you’re not seeing that you have a big ventilation problem right now, then I guess what I would suggest to you is to put in the ridge vents, since that’s something that you can always do, and then couple that with as many other roof vents as you can.

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Tom: Coast to coast and Floorboards to Shingles, this is the Money Pit’s Top Products podcast. I’m Tom Kraeutler.

Leslie: I’m Leslie Segrete.

Tom: Coming to you from the 2018 National Hardware Show, and that sound, those saws, means that the show has begun. Lot of history at the show, and that’s where we’re gonna start, by talking with a guy whose grandfather started the company back in 1919 … David Brands from COAST. Is that right, David?

David: As a matter of fact, yes. We’ve been here now for more years than I can count … long before I started with the company.

Tom: Yeah, you probably were skipping the aisles as a youngster here.

David: That’s right, as a matter of fact, yeah.

Tom: Tell us about COAST.

David: COAST was started by my grandfather in 1919 in Portland, Oregon. The first product he ever made was a salmon filet knife for the fishermen in the Pacific Northwest. Salmon fishing was a huge industry back then, and my grandfather invented a new filet knife so that the commercial fishermen could filet and clean the salmon with one tool. It was the very first product we made to make people’s safer, easier and more enjoyable, and we’ve been doing it for a hundred years since.

Tom: Was he a salmon fisherman or was he an observer of the work that they were doing and thought, “I know a better way to do that?”

David: He was a wholesale hardware salesman.

Tom: Oh, is that right?

David: As he was selling his other products, he came across this idea so he had these made and put them in the trunk of his car and after he got done selling his wholesale hardware products, he’d pull out his own products and sell them in addition.

Leslie: I mean, that’s amazing. I think what’s been so special about COAST throughout this entire time is that you truly go about making people’s work safer, easier, more enjoyable and all of that innovation really forces your team to look at every element of every product you’re designing and making.

David: Yes we do. We spend a very high amount of money on research and development, new product development because we won’t bring a product to market unless it has a technological advantage that literally, makes somebody’s job safer, easier and more enjoyable, which is why our products are really trusted by the American working men in all kinds of jobs, all over the country.

Tom: Well, I’ve used your lights on many a backpacking trip.

David: Thanks.

Tom: They’re very, very bright and definitely help you see right and that’s so important to safety. You guys really have excelled in the LED business.

David: Yes. We were one of the first company’s in the US to really embrace LED technology and to date, we have close to 50 patents or patents pending on LED technology including optics, rechargeable technology, all types of different technology and I’m proud to say that our product development and our research and development team continue to do a really good job looking for new, innovative ways, to make people’s jobs safer.

Tom: That’s what I love about this show and about this industry is that there are so many folks like you, that are so committed to the products, nothing is left untouched for very long. These guys are literally reinventing the hammer, every single day and taking a tool that’s either, been around for 100 years or one that’s been around for one year and continuing looking for ways to improve it and make it better.

David: Thank you. That’s very true. With the advent of LED technology, the entire portable lighting business literally, was turned on its ear and it gave new companies the chance to bring a new technology to the market and the lighting products that are sold today by us and by other companies, are totally different than those that were sold 20 years ago.

Tom: You know what’s also cool is, the technology you built into it, it takes so many hours to use a battery life with an LED and some of them can be set to go off so that doesn’t happen, you know, if you leave it alone? How many times have you put a flashlight in the drawer, left it on?

Leslie: Right.

Tom: All these technologies just make it so much better, plus, the lenses I think, the way you have focused the light, has got to be part of this solution too. I know with your, I think it was a headlamp that I had, that the boy scout troop I was supervising were complaining. When I would look at them, they knew I was looking at them you know? I think that comes from the lens, doesn’t it?

David: Yes. The first, most significant patents we developed were all about optics because LEDs are bright and they use very little energy but it’s really the type of beam you can create using them, that makes a difference between a really good quality light and one that isn’t. We have over 10 patents, just on optics, that create flood beams, spot beams, long distance spot beams and the consistency in size of our beams are, we think, better than anything on the market and that’s really what makes people’s jobs safer and easier with our products because it gives them more light and a bigger light area.

Leslie: I think with your lights, it’s so important to know that, with battery powered, rechargeable capabilities, you give everybody every option, to keep that power flowing. You’ve got backup, backup batteries. You’ve got multiple ways to actually charge that unit itself. Tell us a little bit about that.

David: Thank you. That’s another patent that we came up with. When we first got into the rechargeable light business, we did a lot of surveys with workers and one of the things they didn’t like is that up till then, rechargeable lights were like cell phones. You had to give up your light to charge it. In other words, you had to sit and wait for it to charge so either you had to buy two lights or, you just had to sit and wait so we developed a technology that eliminated that. Not only can our lithium, rechargeable cartridges be recharged inside the light or outside the light, but all of our rechargeable lights also operate on alkaline batteries so if you don’t have access to power, you simply take out the lithium rechargeable battery and put in the alkaline battery cartridge and you get exactly the same performance so you’re never without your light.

Tom: You could have multiple cartridges. You could always have one in the charger and one in the light.

David: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

Tom: That’s great. I also want to talk with you about your knives. I know that you have a technology that improves the safety of your knife products dramatically so let’s talk about that.

David: Thank you. You know, it’s really interesting you brought up about everybody’s always developing a new hammer.

Tom: Right.

David: The knife business is one that, for a long time, has been mostly a cosmetics business, mostly in type of shape and-

Tom: Style and … right.

David: The world’s most popular knives are folding, razor blade utility knives but, they also happen to be the most dangerous knives because the blades are extremely sharp and they’re used for all different types of cutting.

Tom: People over use them.

David: Yeah.

Tom: They keep using them and then they’re using too much pressure and a dull knife is much more dangerous than a sharp knife.

David: Because almost all of them work with a simple liner lock, it’s easy for the liner to fail by getting dirt and something inside so we developed a double lock system, which provides a second level of locking safety on our razor blade utility knives and we’ve virtually eliminated the problem of the locks failing and closing on your fingers and cutting yourself and yeah, I see you cringing.

Leslie: It makes me so nervous because I use blades all the time for work. You use blades all the time for work. If I borrow somebody else’s blade, their closing functionality might be a little different from mine and you get used to working with a certain one and I’m always worried someone’s going to cut their finger off. I’m just always worried about it.

David: Razor blade utility knives are the number one tool that causes accidents in the United States.

Tom: I didn’t know that.

David: With our double lock technology, we virtually eliminated that which is, for all kinds of reasons. Safety reasons, liability reasons, it’s really worth the few extra pennies it costs to get one of our utility knives with a double lock.

Leslie: See, I cringe for a good reason.

Tom: You do and I’m thinking about how much time is wasted opening and closing blades because the slide was locked or it was jammed or it was sticky or something. I’ve had blades just pull right out or pull out half way, which is even more dangerous. That’s a terrific idea. What’s next for COAST?

David: The big movement still, in our business is rechargeable products. We’ve dedicated a lot of time and resources to developing a whole range of rechargeable products. Originally they were for the professional market but now they’re making a lot of sense to the consumer and serious DIY market because of the energy saving. You can virtually bay for some of our rechargeable lights in about 50 uses by saving the battery cost. We’re going to continue to develop a whole range of rechargeable headlamps and hand held lights, which we think will give every worker’s best assortment on the market.

Tom: Well, congratulations on almost 100 years in this business. David Brands, the CEO of COAST. Thanks so much for stopping by my booth.

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Thunder and lightning storms are fairly common occurrences in the U.S. With the impressive show they put on, it can be easy to forget their dangers and the damage they do.

Every year around 25 million storm-associated cloud-to-ground lightning strikes occur in this country and they’re second only to floods among weather-related threats to life and limb. Lightning is also responsible for about $5 billion in annual economic impact resulting from the property and systems damage it causes.

Getting to a safe, grounded shelter is the best way to protect yourself as a thunderstorm approaches, but the danger can continue once you’re inside. To protect your family, home and belongings when lightning strikes, here are the steps you can take now to make your home a damage- and danger-proof zone.

Whole-Home Lightning Protection Systems

Founding father and inventor Ben Franklin can be credited with the beginnings of modern Lightning Protection Systems (LPS). Franklin observed that lightning tends to strike elevated objects, and that a network of conductors and grounding electrodes can carry lightning currents safely away from structures and into the earth to dissipate. Over 200 years later, such systems still do the job, and are all the more vital since contemporary structures contain far more conductive material than those built in Ben’s day.

The three main LPS components are air terminals, conductors, and ground electrodes. Air terminals, also known as lightning rods, are placed at intervals on a home’s roof and any high points projecting from it, and are designed so that lightning strikes them instead of the building. Conductors are the cables that run from among the air terminals to the ground electrodes, where lightning’s charge is sent safely into the earth.

For thorough lightning protection, you’ll also need a complete network of connections which could include vent fans, gutters, water pipes, home electrical systems, phone lines and other vital connections. Between this and the tricky rooftop LPS installation requirements, it’s best to get the help of an experienced lightning protection installer to set up your system.

Pros are also needed to install surge arrestors, which protect your wiring and electrical equipment should a lightning-induced power surge travel down a power line toward your home. Surge arrestors are installed either outside where the electric service enters a building or at the inside service entrance, supplying a ground so that a power surge can’t enter the structure.

Indoor Safety

Once you’ve got a lightning protection system in place, you may think you’re safely indoors ahead of the storm. Well, you’re not. Lightning can still impact home systems and your use of them, so the following precautions should be taken:

Shut down your air conditioner, as a lightning-induced power surge can overload and damage its compressor.
Avoid using the telephone (especially the corded variety) unless it’s an emergency.
Avoid contact with electrical equipment or cords, and unplug any equipment possible before the thunderstorm arrives (if you’re going to be away from home during thunderstorm weather, unplug all unnecessary equipment before you go).
Avoid any tasks that involve contact with pipes or running water–that means no use of sinks or showers, and no laundry chores.
Don’t lie on concrete floors or lean against concrete walls.
Stay off of your porch or deck, and steer clear of windows and doors while you’re inside the house.
Draw blinds and shades over windows so that if windblown objects hit and break them, shattering glass won’t scatter into your home.
Remember that outdoor dog houses aren’t usually lightning-safe shelters; bring all pets indoors to safety before a storm.

Make Sure You’re Covered

Homeowners insurance is meant to protect you when disaster strikes, but the kind of natural phenomena covered can vary depending on the policy you have. The most common policy type is homeowners-3 (a.k.a. form HO-3), and it usually covers damage to both structures and personal property as a result of lightning. Take time now to confirm your coverage’s lightning storm protection provisions and get reacquainted with its inclusions and exclusions so that you’re in the know before the next lightning storm arrives.